Tuesday, December 7, 1976

Game 38: Toyota 106, Crispa 100 (Dec. 7, 1976)

Toyota completed a four-game elimination round sweep of the 1976 PBA All-Philippine Championship while forcing Crispa to face Noritake in a playoff for a spot in the best-of-five title series.

Toyota subdues Crispa, 106-100

By Ding Marcelo

Bulletin Today

Published Wednesday December 8, 1976

Toyota brought down Crispa last night,
106-100, sending the Redmanizers to a knockout game with Noritake
tomorrow for the right to meet the Tamaraws in the best-of-five
series for the All-Philippine championship of the Philippine
Basketball Association.

The Tamaraws, playing heady, inspired
and well-coordinated basketball throughout, surged to 13-point leads
four times and never faltered even as the Redmanizers uncorked rally
after rally in the final quarter.

When the Redmanizers closed in at 78-83
early in the fourth period, the guns of Francis Arnaiz and a
fine-playing Howard Smith gave the Tamaraws a pair of 13-point
spreads, the last at 97-84.

Fortunato Co, Jr. scored an
evening-high 30 points, including Crispa's last 10 points, but it did
nothing to turn the tide and merely narrowed the gap to what it was
at the end.

Now Crispa must win its match against
Noritake tomorrow at 6 p.m. otherwise it will mark the first time
that the Redmanizers, seeking an unprecedented three straight PBA
title, would not figure in a PBA championship game.

The Noritake-Crispa encounter was
cemented after U-Tex subdued Royal Tru-Orange, 123-113, in the first
game that denied the Orangemen a chance to participate in the
playoffs.

The Wranglers' victory, engineered
in most part by Danilo Florencio and Dan Knight, who combined for 54
points, gave U-Tex fourth place on the basis of the quotient system
after the two teams ended with identical 1-3 win-loss records.

“It was the total team effort that
did it,” said Toyota coach Dante Silverio, who added that “the
boys went all out to win this one.”

He said the extra effort was not meant
to eliminate Crispa, but that the Tamaraws “just went out to play
and win.”

Coach Baby Dalupan of Crispa, who stood
up several times to contest referees calls, immediately left the
Araneta Coliseum, apparently in disgust, and was not available for
comment.

He, however, said that enthusiasm was
very little when he called on his first stringers to derail the
Toyota scoring machine which went on to erect its first 13-point
spread, 75-62, against the second team of William Bunton, Tito
Varela, Reynaldo Pages and Cristino Calilan late in the third
quarter.

Earlier, Co, Alfredo Hubalde, Cyrus
Mann and Philip Cezar had put Crispa breast, 47-all, at the half
after trailing 33-24 early in the second quarter.

Arnaiz, who failed to contain the
hot-shooting Co, made up for it by banging in 29 points and doing an
excellent job on the assist department. Rodolfo Segura finished with
24 points while Byron “Snake” Jones added 19.